Robert Whitehead Award

The Commercial Theater Institute administers the Robert Whitehead Award. Each year the award honors a CTI graduate for outstanding achievement in commercial theater producing.

First presented in 1993, the award is named for legendary Broadway producer Robert Whitehead, who won Tony Awards® for producing A Man for All Seasons, Death of a Salesman (1984 revival), and Master Class. He also received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in the theater in 2002.

2019 – Tom Kirdahy

Tom Kirdahy is currently producing Hadestown and the upcoming production of Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune on Broadway. In 2018 he produced The Jungle and the Olivier Award-winner for best new play, The Inheritance in the West End. In 2017, Kirdahy produced Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? in the West End and opened Anastasia on Broadway. He was the lead producer of the 2015 Broadway hit It’s Only a Play starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick and the Tony Award nominated Kander and Ebb musical The Visit starring Chita Rivera. Off-Broadway he produced the NY Times Critic’s Pick White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Additional Tony nominations: Mothers and Sons, After Midnight, Ragtime and Master Class. He is a founding director of Berwin Lee London New York Playwrights, Inc. As an attorney, Kirdahy spent nearly two decades providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS and served for many years on the Executive Committee of the NYC LGBT Center. He currently serves as the Chairperson of the Broadway League Government Relations Committee. Upcoming Projects: The White Chip and Hood.

2017 – Mike Isaacson

Since 2000, Isaacson has co-headed Fox Theatricals with Kristin Caskey and has produced more than 21 Broadway musicals and plays, national tours, off-Broadway plays, and London productions. In June of 2015, he received the Tony award for “Best Musical” for Fun Home by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. Fun Home won five 2015 Tony® Awards and was also a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It also received The Obie, The New York Drama Critics Award and The Outer Critics Circle Award for “Best Musical.” A national tour opened at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square in October of this year and will tour the U.S. throughout 2017. Other producing highlights include The Humans (2016 Tony Award, Best Play) Bring It On The Musical (2013 Tony® nomination for Best Musical); Red (2010 Tony® Award, Best Play); Legally Blonde the Musical (2011 Olivier Award, Best Musical); Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002 Tony® Award, Best Musical); You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; If/Then by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey and starring Idina Menzel; The Seagull starring Kristin Scott Thomas; Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Gary Sinise, and Death of a Salesman (1999 Tony® Award); Traces (Off-Broadway and national tour); Grace, starring Paul Rudd and Michael Shannon. For the Independent Presenters Network, he served as producer for the Broadway productions of Spamalot (2005 Tony® Award, Best Musical), Ragtime (revival) and The Color Purple. With his IPN colleagues Tom Gabbard and John Breckenridge, he also produced and supervised the revised national tour of 9 to 5 The Musical, which played throughout the U.S. and the U.K. All told, his productions have received more than 96 Tony® Award Nominations, and 29 Tony® Awards.

Mike Isaacson is also the third Executive Producer in The Muny’s 99 year history. Of his inaugural season, the Riverfront Times wrote “Under the leadership of executive producer Mike Isaacson the quality of Muny productions rose like the proverbial phoenix.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch awarded him “Theatre Artist of the Year,” writing “staging one impressive production after another, he made The Muny simultaneously hip and – believe it – important to our community.” After his second season, KMOX radio said “The Muny has people talking again and buying tickets to see what all the fuss is about. A full house was not unusual this summer at The Muny.” Of the 35 shows Isaacson has produced at The Muny, 17 have been new to The Muny. The Muny has also just announced an ambitious and exciting strategic plan that will help secure The Muny’s future in its second century. The Muny will celebrate 100 years in its 2018 season.

For 14 years, Isaacson supervised the U.S. Bank Broadway Series, bringing more than 100 Broadway productions to St. Louis’s Fabulous Fox theatre. In 2010, he received the Broadway League’s Samuel J. L’Hommedieu Award for Outstanding Achievement in Presenter Management, the youngest person ever to receive the award. Isaacson has also served on the Board of Governors, the Executive Committee and the Governance Committee of The Broadway League. He served on the search committee that selected league Head Charlotte St. Martin. In January of this year, Mike was honored for “Excellence in the Arts” by the Arts and Education Council in St Louis. Mike lives in St. Louis and is married to Joe Ortmeyer.

2016 – Stacey Mindich

Stacey Mindich is a two-time Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, a recipient of the 2016 Robert Whitehead Award for Excellence in Commercial Producing and winner of the 2018 Grammy Award as a producer for Best Musical Theater Album.

As the lead producer of Dear Evan Hansen, Stacey nurtured this original musical from an idea presented at a long-ago lunch with the composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, through an eight-year development that featured critically-acclaimed and sold-out runs both at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and Second Stage Theatre off-Broadway, to its current home at The Music Box Theater on Broadway, where it has broken every box office record. Dear Evan Hansen is the winner of six 2017 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, the 2018 Grammy Award and its original cast recently received Daytime Emmy Awards for their performance on The Today Show. Atlantic Records’ Original Broadway Cast Recording of Dear Evan Hansen made an extraordinary debut at #8 on the Billboard 200, the highest-charting debut position for an original cast album since 1961. Stacey also shepherded a special edition coffee table book, DEAR EVAN HANSEN: through the window, into publication this year (Grand Central Publising/Melcher Media), which offers an in-depth, all-access look at the musical. Hailed by The New York Times as “a gut-punching, breathtaking knockout of a musical” and by The Washington Post as “one of the most remarkable shows in musical theater history,” the show features a score by the Tony and Oscar-winning composing team of Pasek & Paul, a book by Tony-winning playwright Steven Levenson, and is directed by Rent and Next to Normal’s four-time Tony-nominated Michael Greif. As Dear Evan Hansen expands its national and global footprint, Stacey is looking forward to producing its national tour (opening October 2018 in Denver), Toronto production (opening in March 2019) and will soon announce a London production.

Other noteworthy Stacey Mindich productions include The Crucible, Blackbird, the Tony Award-winning Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Bridges of Madison County (Tony Award, Best Score), Annie, The Heiress, Lucky Guy, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lion (Drama Desk Award), and Small Mouth Sounds, hailed by The New York Times and others as one of 2016’s best off-Broadway plays.

Dear Evan Hansen was born out of a commissioning program at Stacey Mindich Productions that pairs emerging composers with the esteemed directors of our industry. Believing deeply in the need to premiere new musical works and nurture new voices, Stacey has also funded and enhanced productions for a variety of not-for-profit theaters including Playwrights Horizons (The Dead, Burnt Part Boys, The Shaggs, Far from Heaven and Fly by Night), The Roundabout Theatre Company (Ordinary Days and The Disappearance of Tom Durnin), Williamstown Theatre Festival (an as-of-yet untitled Benjamin Scheuer project) and Second Stage (Quiara Hudes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful and Jason Robert Brown’s beloved The Last Five Years). Stacey has also established The Stacey and Eric Mindich Fund for Musicals at Lincoln Center Theater, to commission new musicals (Women on the Verge, Dogfight) and support stellar revivals such as the Tony Award-winning South Pacific and the Tony Award-winning The King and I.

Stacey is the co-chair of the board at New York City Center, home to the Tony Award-winning Encores series of musical revivals and its newest series, Stacey’s brainchild, Encores: Off-Center. Created by artistic director Jeanine Tesori, Off-Center spotlights off-Broadway revivals interpreted for a new generation. Stacey is a founding board member of the Lilly Awards, where she presents the annual “Go Write a Play Award,” which supports a new work by a female playwright every year. Past recipients include Tanya Barfield, Neena Beber, Heidi Schreck, Rehana Lew Mirza, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning Martyna Majok. This June at the Lillys, Stacey will initiate a new “Go Write a Musical Award,” to be given to a female composer annually. She also initiated the “Fund for New Musicals” at the National Alliance for Musical Theater, where she was vice president of the board. Stacey serves on the Broadway League’s Board of Governors and is also a proud member of the board of The Jimmy Awards (The National High School Musical Theater Awards).

Prior to her career in theater, Stacey was a journalist and editor. She was Senior Editor at Town & Country for many years. Stacey began her career as a reporter for The New York Times, and has also written for Newsday, Self, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Departures. She is the author of the book Town & Country’s Elegant Weddings and her essays have appeared in a collection of anthologies called Social Graces.

Married to Eric Mindich for 22 years, their proudest co-productions are sons Russell, Danny and Charlie.

2015 – Robert Cole

ROBERT COLE has worked in the professional theatre since 1975. He has been a producer, general manager, teacher, literary agent and actor. His experience in the entertainment industry also includes film and television development and consulting for performing arts organizations. In 1979 Cole founded the Michael Chekhov Studio, an acting school for professional actors in New York. He served as the Studio’s artistic director until 1982 when he began to pursue a career in producing. He continues to teach acting at various colleges and acting studios. Robert Cole made his Broadway producing debut in 1984 with August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He is the recipient of 4 Tony Awards. Other credits include The Crucible (starring Liam Neison & Laura Linney), Death of a Salesman (starring Brian Dennehy); Angels in America; Horton Foote’s The Young Man from Atlanta; Lanford Wilson’s Redwood Curtain (starring Jeff Daniels); Elaine Stritch at Liberty; Eric Bogosian’s Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll;One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (starring Gary Sinise); Mamet’s The Cryptogram; Sam Shepard’s Buried Child; John Leguizamo’s Freak;Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (starring Ashley Judd); A Raisin in the Sun (starring Sean Combs); and Emily Mann’s Having Our Say. Mr. Cole produced the film, Tape directed by Richard Linklater and starring Uma Thurman & Ethan Hawke. In 2002 Robert Cole took a hiatus from producing. Upon sensing the 7-year itch in 2009 he returned to producing with a development deal with the Shubert Organization. Since that return he has produced Once, Lucky Guy (Tom Hanks), A Steady Rain (Daniel Craig & Hugh Jackman); That Championship Season (2011); Orphans and Harvey Fierstein’s Casa Valentina. Cole is a member of the The Broadway League and serves on its Board of Governors.

2013 – Jeffrey Finn

JEFFREY FINN is an award-winning Broadway producer; a three-time Tony Award nominee; president and founder of Jeffrey Finn Productions, a live production company that specializes in First Class Broadway and touring theatricals; president and founder of Hot On Broadway, a corporate entertainment agency that works exclusively with stars from Broadway’s biggest shows; co-author and producer of the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play Game Show; an upstanding member of the Broadway League; and a proud graduate of Connecticut College. He is a frequent lecturer on strategic fundraising, investor relations, and developing new works for the stage with regional theatres. Jeffrey received the 2013 Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in commercial theatre producing. Collectively, his shows have grossed over $200 million worldwide. Current projects include the new Broadway-bound musical The Honeymooners, based on the classic CBS sitcom.
Since 1992, Jeffrey has produced eleven Broadway shows and over twenty-five National Tours and Regional Productions. His Broadway credits The Elephant Man starring Bradley Cooper; Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses starring Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei; John Logan’s critically acclaimed I’ll Eat You Last starring Bette Midler; Dead Accounts starring Katie Holmes and Norbert Leo Butz; Seminar starring Alan Rickman; Kathie Lee Gifford’s Scandalous starring Carolee Carmello; the Tony Award nominated production of Green Day’s American Idiot; the Tony Award nominated revival of A View From The Bridge starring Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson; David Mamet’s Oleanna starring Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman; Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury, Rupert Everett and Christine Ebersole; and the Tony Award nominated revival of On Golden Pond starring James Earl Jones. National Tour highlights include The Music Of Andrew Lloyd Webber; The Who’s Tommy; Leader Of The Pack; Tell Me On A Sunday; Promises, Promises; Company; Chess; and numerous Broadway Songbooks concert tours. In addition to his commercial work, Jeffrey is notable for his relationships with some of the top regional and not-for-profit theatres around the country, including The Kennedy Center, Center Theatre Group, The 5th Avenue Theatre, and many more.

As a corporate event professional under the banner “Hot On Broadway,” Jeffrey has produced customized musical entertainment across the globe for several Fortune 500 companies, including General Motors, Disney, Bayer, GE, The Ritz-Carlton, PepsiCo, Toyota, Citi, Prudential, Fidelity, H&R Block, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and many more. His business accomplishments have been featured in American Express Business Platinum Ventures Magazine, Events Magazine, Corporate & Incentive Travel, Southern California Meetings & Events, and Meetings Minnesota’s Hospitality Journal.

In 2000, Jeffrey co-authored the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway play Game Show. The play continues to be produced extensively both domestically and internationally. For more information, please visit: JeffreyFinnProductions.com and HotOnBroadway.com

2012 – Jon Platt

JON B. PLATT, President of THE BROADWAY COMPANY, is a Tony Award winning producer whose Broadway slate is extraordinary when tallying the sheer number of productions and their broad range of topics.

Mr. Platt is an original producer of the most honored dramatic work in Broadway history, Angels in America. This two-part play won the Pulitzer Prize and seven Tony Awards, accomplishing the unprecedented feat of winning the Tony for Best Play two years in a row. Nominated for twenty-two Tony’s, Mr. Platt has won eight; Book of Mormon, God of Carnage, Clybourne Park, Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, Copenhagen and Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Perestroika.

This season Mr. Platt is represented on Broadway by This Is Our Youth (Michael Cera), The National Theatre’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, A Delicate Balance (Glenn Close, John Lithgow), Skylight (Bill Nighy, Carey Mulligan), The Audience (Helen Mirren), Fish in the Dark (Larry David) and The Public Theatre’s Fun Home.

He launched his theatrical career in Boston where he revitalized The Colonial Theatre, The Wilbur Theatre and The Charles Playhouse. Mr. Platt’s loving restorations of the above treasures gave artists and audiences alike the opportunity to enjoy the performing arts in these splendid institutions well into the future. During his tenure in Boston Mr. Platt launched numerous pre-Broadway premieres and National tours. Mr. Platt had the vision to produce Blue Man Group in its legitimate theatre debut. Blue Man Group continues to run in The Charles Playhouse, now entering its 20th year. Due to his work at the Colonial and Wilbur Theatres and for establishing Blue Man Group as a Boston institution, The New York Times announced “Boston is now ranked second among twenty-five cities in gross earnings from Broadway shows, up from twenty-fourth a year earlier.” Mr. Platt subsequently received the prestigious “Elliot Norton Award” for “showing the vision and taking the risk to reinvigorate the commercial theatre in Boston.”

Mr. Platt’s national tour productions include The Book of Mormon, Wicked, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, The Sound of Music, Sunset Boulevard, Peter Pan, A Chorus Line, Fiddler on the Roof and many others.

Mr. Platt enjoys restoring historic theatres and architecturally significant homes. He collaborated with architect Frank Gehry to restore Schnabel House in Los Angeles, a home featured in Living Architecture’s “20 Greatest American Houses of the 20th Century.” Mr. Platt, Halle Berry, and Tiffany & Co. hosted a star-studded event at Schnabel House to benefit Ms. Berry’s Jenesse Center for victims of domestic abuse. Jon teaches and raises funds for numerous not-for-profit organizations including The Big Brothers and Big Sisters Association who honored him with a special award “in gratitude for creating the opportunities which are enriching our children’s lives.”

2011 – Jill Furman

JILL FURMAN received the Tony Award for Best Musical for Hamilton (2016) and In the Heights (2008). Other Broadway: Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The Heiress, Seminar, West Side Story, The Drowsy Chaperone, Sly Fox and Fortune’s Fool. Off-Broadway: On the Line and Adult Entertainment. Jill executive produced the Pivot television series “Freestyle Love Supreme” and also produces the live version of the show. In 2011, Jill received the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatre Producing. Jill is on the Board of Directors of the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, and is a member of the President’s Advisory Council for the Arts at Brown University, the Spence School Alumnae Board, and The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

2010 – Stuart Thompson

STUART THOMPSON (1955-2017) produced the 2014-2015 season’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night-Time and The River. Other Broadway shows he produced includes No Man’s Land / Waiting for Godot in repertory, both starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Sean Mathias’ productions, Mike Nichols production of Death of Salesmen, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Testament of Mary, with Fiona Shaw, directed by Deborah Warner, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2012-2013), directed by Rob Ashford with Scarlett Johansson, Jerusalem with Mark Rylance in Ian Rickson’s production, The Motherf**ker With the Hat starring Chris Rock and Bobby Cannavale under Anna Shapiro’s direction, A View From the Bridge (2010) with Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson directed by Gregory Mosher, and Exit the King with Geoffrey Rush, as well as God of Carnage, and Deuce. Thompson was also the executive producer of the three U.S. companies of The Book of Mormon and a co-producer of the London production. He received 4 Tony Awards as a producer.

He began his producing career on Broadway with David Mamet’s The Old Neighborhood in 1997 and went on to co-produce The Chairs, which received a Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Play and Not About Nightingales. He subsequently produced the MTC transfers of the two longest running plays of the last 21 years, Proof and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Other credits include The Play What I Wrote, The Retreat from Moscow, and On Golden Pond. Off-Broadway, he produced Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things and Adam Rapp’s Red Light Winter. Having produced Mike Bartlett’s play, Cock, off Broadway, he also produced the same author’s new play King Charles III in London’s West End.

Stuart Thompson was an expatriate Australian who moved to New York in the early 1980’s, initially as a graduate student at NYU. Robert Whitehead was his mentor, as was Lewis Allen. They hired him as general manager for their production in 1989 of A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin. Since then, Stuart Thompson’s general management company has been responsible for Over 90 Broadway, Off-Broadway, and National Touring productions, including Tru, Blood Brothers, A Doll’s House, Take Me Out, Art, An Ideal Husband, Faith Healer, Caroline, or Change, Three Days of Rain, Boeing-Boeing, Shrek The Musical, You’re Welcome America, The Seagull. He was the General Manager for four plays by David Hare: The Blue Room, Amy’s View, The Judas Kiss and Skylight. He also was the Executive Producer as well as General Manager for Hare’s The Vertical Hour and The Year of Magical Thinking written by Joan Didion and directed by Davie Hare.

2009 – Dori Berinstein

DORI BERINSTEIN is a four-time Tony-winning Broadway producer and an Emmy-award-winning director, producer and writer of film and television.

Dori’s next Broadway musical The Prom, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw (Book of Mormon, MeanGirls) is a hilarious musical comedy with gigantic heart and a timely message of ‘acceptance’. The Prom opens on Broadway fall 2018. Dori is also the Producer of Half Time, an exuberant musical comedy (true story!) about the first-ever senior citizen dance team for an NBA Basketball Team. The show, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde), stars Georgia Engel, André De Shields, and Lillias White. Half Time, inspired by Dori’s award-winning documentary film Gotta Dance.

Dori is the recipient of Broadway’s Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatre Producing. Dori is also co-founder of Camp Broadway, an immersive behind-the- scenes Theatre Camp for kids and is partnered with the genius illustrator Justin “Squigs” Robertson on the Lights of Broadway Trading Cards.

As a Documentary Filmmaker, Dori directed, wrote and produced: Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love (Emmy Award / American Masters) a deeply personal, insider and candid look at one of the greatest artists of our time; CarolChanning: Larger Than Life (Showtime) revealing the magic and vivacity of the 90 -year-old icon – both onstage and off…past and present; Gotta Dance (adapted for the stage – Half Time); Some Assembly Required chronicling six teams of determined teenagers as they navigate ‘the game of life’ on their quest to win the national toy invention crown and ShowBusiness: The Road To Broadway (Showtime) chronicling the behind-the- curtain passion, exhilaration, drama, sweat and high stakes creative and financial risks of four new Broadway musicals. Dori’s award-winning documentary short The Last Blintz, about the closing of Broadway’s Café Edison Diner, is currently screening at film festivals.

For Television, Dori co- created, executive-produced and directed Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming, a series of five 1-hour star-packed TV Specials on Oxygen. Dori also co-created, executive-produced and directed 4 seasons (70 episodes) of The Isaac Mizrahi Show on Oxygen.

Dori executive produced and/or supervised over 50 feature, special f/x and/or animated productions, including Isaac Mizrahi’s award-winning documentary Unzipped, Dirty Dancing (both the feature film & TV series) and Jim Henson’s MuppetVision 3-D. She has executive produced websites for Oprah and President Clinton. She spearheaded creative development and production for DreamWorks Theatricals and has worked as a Producer and/or an Executive for Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, NBC, MTV, Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, Oxygen Media, Vestron Pictures, and Walt Disney Imagineering. Dori began her professional career as an Investment Banker in Mergers & Acquisitions for Morgan Stanley.

2008 – Nick Scandalios

NICK SCANDALIOS is the Executive Vice President of the Nederlander Organization, one of the largest owners of legitimate theatres in the world, as well as one of the largest theatrical producing organizations in North America. He is also a past Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Broadway League, and past chair of the Board of Family Equality Council. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. This year marks his 31st anniversary with the Nederlander Organization. Nederlander owns or operates theatres in New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; San Diego, CA; San Jose, CA; Tucson, AZ; North Charleston, SC; Durham, NC; Oklahoma City, OK and London, England. The Nederlander Organization is currently represented on Broadway by the following productions: WICKED, Disney’s THE LION KING, Hamilton, SpongeBob SquarePants, Waitress, Escape to Margaritaville, Angels in America, My Fair Lady and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.

2004 – David Binder

David Binder is a Tony Award-winning producer whose credits include Broadway, off-Broadway and festivals. He is the Guest Artistic Director of LIFT, the London International Festival of Theatre, which will take place in June and feature artists from around the world including Back to Back, Anu, Taylor Mac, and Duke Riley’s Fly by Night.

In New York, Binder produced the High Line Festival, curated by David Bowie. The festival featured performances by Arcade Fire, Laurie Anderson, Meow Meow, and, in his American stand-up comedy debut, Ricky Gervais. He also produced the Dutch New Island Festival on New York’s Governors Island, 10 days of site-specific performance, music, theater, and dance from the Netherlands including artists such as Anouk van Dijk, Armin van Buuren, and Ivo van Hove.

On Broadway, Binder produced Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which won four Tony Awards including Best Revival. Last summer, Hedwig wrapped up a US national tour at the Kennedy Center. He is the original producer of Hedwig, having mounted the original production in 1997. Binder produced the record-breaking production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, starring James Franco and Chris O’Dowd, which was the first Broadway show to be filmed by NT Live. His Tony Award-winning revival of A Raisin in the Sun starring Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald has been widely recognized for its lasting impact on who comes to Broadway. Other credits include Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda on Broadway and subsequently in Los Angeles with Center Theatre Group; De La Guarda; and Fuerza Bruta.

At the Sydney Opera House, Binder produced This Is Our Youth with Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin. He has co-produced five shows with the Donmar Warehouse, including Frost/Nixon and Mary Stuart on Broadway, and Lobby Hero, Voyage Around My Father with Derek Jacobi, and

Guys and Dolls with Ewan McGregor in the West End.

In addition to the Tony Award for Hedwig, Binder has received four Tony nominations, an Emmy nomination, and a Golden Globe nomination. He has been honored by Performance Space 122 and is the recipient of the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatrical Producing.

Binder has been a teaching fellow at Princeton University and was on the faculty at the Yale School of Drama for six years. He has spoken about festivals, audience development, and creativity at gatherings across Europe and the US. David Binder’s TED talk, “The Arts Festival Revolution,” has been seen online by more than a half million people and was chosen by The Guardian as one of the best talks about theater on the web.

2000 – Anne Strickland Squadron

ANNE STRICKLAND SQUADRON was a theatrical producer both on and off-Broadway from 1994 – 2006. She co-presented the Broadway productions of Kiki & Herb: Alive On Broadway (Tony Award nomination for Best Special Theatrical Event); Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home (Tony Award nomination for Best Special Theatrical Event); It Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues (Tony Award nomination for Best Musical); The Herbal Bed; and Paul Robeson starring Avery Brooks. Off Broadway producing credits include Star Billing, the Theatrical Reminiscences of Alexander H. Cohen; Papa starring Len Cariou as Ernest Hemingway; Song by Song – The Music of Michael Valenti; the musical political satires, Capitol Steps and What’s A Nice Country Like You Doing In A State Like This?; and the musical Lust. She served as associate producer or co-producer with several non-profit theaters including the Drama Dept., Primary Stages, MCC and the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Prior to her work in the theater, Anne was a staff attorney at Bronx Legal Services after having been a volunteer attorney for Children’s Rights when it was still a project at the ACLU. More recently, she has done extensive volunteer work with the American Red Cross, New York Public Radio, and the Matrimonial Division of the New York Supreme Court. She serves on the Emeriti Council of New York City Center, and is currently employed as the assistant to an award-wining actress.

1999 – Eric Krebs

ERIC KREBS has been a theatrical producer as well as a professor for over 45 years. Currently he is presenting THAT PHYSICS SHOW (in its third year) and THAT CHEMISTRY SHOW (in its second year) off Broadway. On Broadway he produced Electra, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, Bill Maher in his Victory Begins at Home, Avery Brooks in Paul Robeson and Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party. His Broadway productions have received 10 Tony Award nominations. Off-Broadway, he produced over 40 productions, including Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love, Neil LaButte’s Bash, The Capitol Steps, This Is Our Youth, etc. and built and operated the John Houseman and Douglas Fairbanks Theaters for 23 years. In the not-for-profit theater, he founded and was Artistic Director of the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey, a regional theater now in its 44th season. He served as Chairman of the AMAS Musical Theater for 22 years. He is a professor emeritus at Rutgers University and is currently a Professor of Theater at Baruch College of the City University of New York where he will teach for his 50th year, starting in September 2018. In 2011, he built The Playroom Theater, a 62 seat venue on West 46 Street, where he “plays.” Current main project in development? I SPY A SPY, a Hell’s Kitchen, Russian Spy, Mexican Immigrant, romantic musical comedy.

1998 – Liz Oliver

LIZ OLIVER’s producing credits include Buried Child (five Tony nominations), The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Tony Award, Best Play), and Wait Until Dark, featuring Quentin Tarantino and Marisa Tomei. She received the Commercial Theater Institute’s 1998 Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatrical Producing. Liz started her professional career in public television, in which she worked for 9 years after graduating from Yale. For WNET/13 in New York she produced, acquired and developed work by independent filmmakers. Following WNET she moved to ABC’s newly established Arts Cable service, where she developed and acquired work for the cable enterprise. After her successful producing ventures, Liz began to write for the theater. No Boundaries, her first musical, was accepted for the 2005 New York Musical Theater Festival and ran in repertory with other Festival selections at St. Clements Theatre. No Boundaries featured rap music composed for the show by active writers/recording artists in the genre, a first, and was one of the first theatrical musicals ever to recognize, celebrate and present for theater rap’s unique essence of story-telling while also reflecting the perspectives of the hip hop culture behind it. Liz also directed the new York Musical theatre production on which she collaborated with 6 different singer-songwriters including Speech (former lead singer/songwriter for Arrested Development), the Spooks, Pamela Laws, Laura Love, Sam Bisbee and the renown jazz bassist and composer Marcus Miller.

1997 – Marc Routh

Marc Routh is currently represented on Broadway with The Band’s Visit (Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Obie Award, New York Drama Critics Circle Award), The Parisian Women starring Uma Thurman, and Anastasia, off-Broadway with STOMP STOMP (Drama Desk Award and Obie Award for Unique Theatre Experience, Legend of Off Broadway Award) and 54 Below, Broadway’s award-winning nightclub (MAC Board of Directors Award, Nightlife Award, June Briggs Award for Excellence in Destination Management, Concierge Choice Award for Nightlife) and in London with An American in Paris and YoungFrankenstein.

He is a four-time Tony Award winner for The Norman Conquests, Company, Hairspray, and The Producers (12 Tony Award, the most Tony Awards for a single show in Broadway history). His Tony nominations include An American in Paris (12 Tony nominations), Leap of Faith, A Little Night Music, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, Swing! and The Sound of Music. Other Broadway productions include Amelie, The Encounter, Young Frankenstein (Outer Critics Circle Award, Broadway.com Audience Award), Burn the Floor, A Catered Affair, Little Shop of Horrors, The Weir, Forever Tango, Legally Blonde, Love Letters, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Triumph of Love, and Penn & Teller.

Additional credits: Off-Broadway: Old Jews Telling Jokes, Murder Ballad, The Fantasticks, Be, Cookin’, Mnemonic(Drama Desk and Lortel Award for Unique Theatrical Experience), Tap Dogs(Obie Award), The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, The Mystery of Irma Vep (Lortel Award for Best Revival), My Old Lady, The Water Coolers, Inside Out, Three for All, Jeffrey (Outer Critics Circle Award), Marvin’s Room (Drama Desk Award), and Three Ways Home. Tours: Flashdance, David Helfgott In Concert and The Irish…And How They Got That Way. Las Vegas: STOMP OUT LOUD, Tap Dogs, Hairspray and The Producers. West End: An American in Paris, Flashdance, Trevor Nunn’s Porgy and Bess, Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers (Olivier Award), Hairspray (Olivier Award), Dolly West’s Kitchen, This is Our Youth, Oleanna, Simply Heavenly, and Immodesty Blaise and Walter’s Burlesque. Toronto: The Producers (Dora Award) and Hairspray and in Australia include Smokey Joe’s Cafe and The Producers (Helpmann Award). Other credits as Associate Producer and General Manager include Later Life, Song of Singapore (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical), Love Letters, Das Barbecu, Bubbe Meises, Bubbe Stories, and Penn & Teller Rot in Hell.

As co-founder for Broadway Asia with Simone Genatt, he has presented the North American tours of the Vietnamese Water Puppets and Cookin‘, as well as productions of STOMP, Swing!, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Hairspray, and The Producers in Asia. As a principal of Broadway Asia Entertainment, he produced the ground-breaking Chinese language production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and the tours of Cinderella starring Lea Salonga, The King and I, 42nd Street and Spongebob Squarepants Live. He created the new musical Reel to Real which premiered in Beijing. His productions for the Edinburgh Festival include the musicals Reel to Real and Sidhartha, as well as Around the World in a Bad Mood and Nanta and China Goes Pop! Broadway Asia created the ground-breaking Mandarin language musical featuring the music of Chinese superstar Jay Chou, The Secret, and a large scale immersive spectacular Neverland, the Peter Pan story. Their production of China Goes Pop! premiered in Beijing and played the 2017 Edinburgh Festival. Upcoming productions for Broadway Asia include Kung Fu Panda Live Spectacular, the international tours of An American in Paris and Amelie and Crazy For You and Pretty Women for Broadway.

He was a founding partner of On the Road, a theatrical booking agency, Showtix, a Broadway group sales company that was acquired by Hollywood Media and Broadway Inner Circle, a premium ticket agency.

He is an Adjunct Professor of the Graduate Department of Theatre Studies at Brooklyn College where he is in his 25th year teaching “Business Management for the Performing Arts.” He has lectured at Columbia University, Youngstown State University, New York University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the recipient of the Robert Whitehead Award as Outstanding Commercial Theatre Producer, was inducted into the NYU Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame, and served as the president of The League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers for 8 years. He is the subject of a chapter in “The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well.” (Plume, 2013).

1996 – Randall L. Wreghitt

RANDALL L. WREGHITT (1956-2011) produced The Miracle Worker (with Abigail Breslin), Impressionism (with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen), and the Broadway musical Grey Gardens which was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The show went on to win three Tonys.

He also produced Martin McDonagh’s Lieutentant of Inishmore which was nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Play and Little Women- The Musical starring Tony Winner Sutton Foster (Best Actress Tony nomination) and Maureen McGovern, as well as its national tour. Other Broadway productions include Golda’s Balcony starring Tovah Feldshuh (Best Actress Tony nomination) and written by William Gibson; Mary Zimmerman’s Tony Award winning Metamorphosis; Hedda Gabbler starring Kate Burton (Best Actress Tony nomination); the Tony Award winning revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Gary Sinese (two Tony nominations); McDonagh’s The Lonesome West (four Tony nominations including Best Play); McDonagh’s four-time Tony Award winning play, The Beauty OF Leenane (six Tony nominations including Best Play); the acclaimed revival of Electra starring Zoe Wanamaker (three Tony nominations including Best Revival) and the musical, Band in Berlin. He was the Associate Producer of the Tony Award winning Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing.

Off Broadway productions include: The Waverly Gallery by Kenny Lonergan starring the legendary Eileen Heckert in the role that won her every major theater award (Drama Desk, Obie, Lortel, Outer Circle Award and Drama League). He also produced Douglas Carter Beane’s hit comedy, As Bees in Honey Drown; Karen Trott’s acclaimed one person musical, The Springhill Singing Disaster; the hit revival of Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band; Nicky Silver’s long running hit, The Food Chain; Mark St. Germaine’s award-winning comedy, Camping with Henry and Tom; and the Off Broadway cult hit musical Zombie Prom. He was the Associate Producer of Edward Albee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Three Tall Women.

On London’s West End, he has produced Kenneth Lonnergan’s The Lobby Hero and the revival of The Boys in the Band. He also produced Velocity as part of the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in Scotland and Crush the Infamous Thing a new comedy, regionally in the United States.

1995 – Kevin McCollum

Kevin McCollum has received the Tony Award for Best Musical for In the Heights (2008), Avenue Q (2004), and Rent (1996), which also won the Pulitzer Prize. He is currently represented on Broadway with the Olivier Award-winning The Play That Goes Wrong. He produced Something Rotten!(Broadway, National Tour), Hand to God ( Broadway, West End), Motown: The Musical (Broadway , West End, and National Tour), The Drowsy Chaperone in 2006, which won five Tony Awards, Baz Luhrmann’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme in 2002, [title of show] in 2008, the touring and Broadway productions of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, the off Broadway hit De La Guarda, the recent hit revival of West Side Story, and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. In 1995 Mr. McCollum co-founded the Producing Office, and has since created Alchemation, a theatrical and media producing company committed to new work. Mr. McCollum was trained at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and earned his Master’s degree in film producing from the Peter Stark Program at the University of Southern California. In 1995, he received the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Commercial Theatre Producing.

1994 – Dennis Grimaldi

DENNIS GRIMADLI Began his career as a dancer under the guidance of the famed Stone-Camryn School and Gail Larry in his native Chicago, Illinois, He has danced in Gower Champion’s Hello, Dolly! and Sugar, for Jack Cole, Man of La Mancha, Michael Bennett Promises, Promises, and the Pre Broadway tour of Jose Ferrer’s Song For Cyrano. He has been a director and Choreographer for Broadway, Off Broadway The West End and for television. He first worked as an Associate Producer on the Broadway production of A. R. Gurney’s Sweet Sue starring Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave.

As a Producer, Broadway productions include; the 2014 Tony Award musical AGentleman’s Guide …, Love Letters, directed by Gregory Mosher starring Mia Farrow, Brian Dennehy, Carol Burnett, Alan Alda, Candice Bergen, Stacey Keach, Diana Riggs, Anjelica Huston and Martin Sheen, On the Town, The Realistic Jones, the US National tour of Ghost the Musical, For the Broadway stage, Co-produced the 10 time Tony nominated George and Ira Gershwin musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It ,which starred Matthew Broderick, Kelli O’Hara, Jessie Mueller and Estelle Parsons, the revival of Stephen Schwartz’s musical Godspell; the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning Angels in America, the Olivier Award winning Rise and Fall of Little Voice; Tony nominated Sally Marr (with Joan Rivers), Frank Gilroy’s Any Given Day (with Sada Thompson) Tony Nominated The High Rollers (Vivien Reed), Tom Stoppard’s Artist Descending a Staircase. He has also been associated with It’s Only a Play Starring Nathan Lane, Mathew Broderick, Megan Mulllally, Stockard Channing, Rupert Grint and F Murray Abraham, the Tony nominated Musical A Christmas Story and with Above the Title and John Frost, the Australian tour of Driving Miss Daisy; starring Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. With Emanuel Azenberg on the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning Neil Simon production of Lost in Yonkers as well as Simon’s Jake’s Women and London Suite , With the Producer’s Circle, Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life. Other Productions which he has produced include: the New York and Los Angeles productions of Girl’s Room (Carol Lawrence and Donna McKecknie). Off Broadway, Leslie Jordon My Trip Down The Pink Carpet; the Grace & Glorie (Lucie Arnaz and Estelle Parsons); Outer Critics Circle Award winning Other People’s Money (Mercedes Ruehel), The Obie Award winning The Boys in the Band revival , the musicals Nunsense Jamboree, Fanny Hill and Outer Critics Circle winner Annie Warbucks (Harve Presnell and Donna McKechnie), which had the distinction to also perform at The White House. The London’s Evening Standard Award winning Burning Blue, Like Love; the musical adaptation of A.R. Gurney’s Richard Cory by Ed Dixon and David Mamet’s The Cryptogram among others. His many London productions on the West End include The Boys in the Band, John Lahr’s Diary of a Somebody, Jack Gilford in Look To the Rainbow and Stephen Sondheim’s Marry Me A Little He was also a Producer for Candid Productions, a television production company, for 15 years; producing programming for ABC, NBC and HBO. He has been awarded the Robert Whitehead Award for Excellence in Theatre Production, The NY Film and Television Gold Medal Awards, The Outer Critics Awards and The Carbonell Award. Productions have earned The Drama Desk, Tony Awards, as well as The Pulitzer Prize.

1993- Susan Quint Gallin & Benjamin Mordecai

Susan Gallin has been Producing on Broadway, Off Broadway and London for over 25 years…..Plays and Musicals that have won many awards including Tonys and the Pulitzer Prize. Some career highlights include her first Broadway play, “Burn This,” first Off Broadway play, “Other People’s Money”, and as one of the producing team in 1993 of Angels in America, a play that proved that theater can change lives. She is the first recipient of the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Producing.

BENJAMIN MORDECAI (1944-2005) had been Associate Dean of the Yale School of Drama where, in addition to teaching and chairing the school’s graduate management program, he was responsible for financial aid and recruitment. From 1982 to 1993, he was managing director of Yale Repertory Theatre. As managing director of Yale Repertory Theatre, Mr. Mordecai transferred nine plays from Yale to Broadway including five plays by August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984-1985, Tony Award nomination for Best Play), Fences (1987-1988, Tony winner for Best Play and 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988, Tony nomination for Best Play), The Piano Lesson (1990-1991, Tony nomination for Best Play and 1990 Pulitzer Prize winner) and Two Trains Running (1992, Tony nomination for Best Play and 1992 Pulitzer Prize nominee). He produced 10 of August Wilson’s plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally and in London’s West End.

In the mid-’90s Mordecai formed Sageworks Inc., a business partnership with Wilson that would allow the playwright greater control of his work. Under the partnership, they produced Wilson’s Seven Guitars (1996, Tony nomination for Best Play and 1995 Pulitzer Prize nominee), King Hedley II (2001, Tony nomination for Best Play and 2000 Pulitzer Prize nominee) and a revival of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2003).

Mr. Mordecai also produced Wilson’s Jitney, at the Union Square Theatre in the fall of 2000 and at London’s Royal National Theatre. It received the Olivier Award for Best New Play.

In addition to his Tony and the Olivier Awards, Mr. Mordecai received two NAACP Theatre Awards for producing The Piano Lesson and Two Trains Running and a 1998 Special Achievement Award from the New England Theatre Conference.